Delivered on 11 June 1963, Kennedy’s Civil Rights Address followed the federal enforcement of desegregation at the University of Alabama. Speaking to a national television audience, Kennedy described racial discrimination as a moral issue as well as a legal and constitutional one. He argued that Black Americans should have equal access to education, employment, public facilities and the ballot, and that these rights should not depend on where a person lived.

Kennedy called on Americans to examine discrimination in their own communities and announced his intention to seek stronger federal civil rights legislation from Congress. The address marked a clearer presidential commitment to national action on racial equality than Kennedy had previously expressed. It helped prepare the political ground for legislation that, after his assassination, contributed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.